BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian federal police said they
arrested on Wednesday at least 40 members of an illegal logging
operation in an Amazon tribal Indian reservation amid growing
concern over destruction of the world's largest rain forest.

The operation cleared the equivalent of 70,000 football
fields of virgin forest in the Vale do Guapore Indian reserve
in Mato Grosso state, the federal police said in a statement.

Among those arrested were loggers, highway and military
police officers, neighboring farmers and state civil servants.

The loggers bribed officials of the government's Indian
foundation Funai and befriended Indians with gifts such as
cars, motorcycles and chain saws, a police spokeswoman told
Reuters from Mato Grosso.

ADVERTISEMENT

The arrest follows rising concern over the rain forest
among environmental groups after Environment Minister Marina
Silva, who was seen as a guardian of the Amazon, stepped down
on May 13.

They fear the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva is accelerating big infrastructure projects such as roads
and hydroelectric plants that will destroy more forest.

Country-sized chunks of the Amazon forest are cut down
every year. Conservationists blame farmers and cattle ranchers
for pushing deeper into the forest in search of cheap land to
boost output as commodity prices soar.

Defense Minister Nelson Jobim announced earlier this month
that the army would deploy troops in Indian reserves along the
country's borders. The military and conservative politicians
expressed concern the unprotected reserves made Brazil's
borders vulnerable to drug traffickers and Colombian guerrilla
fighters.